Free La Skieda

Dear Friends,

Many apologies for having taken so long to write to you, but over the past few months we’ve being trying to understand what to do. We’ve been wondering whether it would make sense to continue offering a winning solution, something that’s highly valued, tried and tested but, just like a successful long-term marriage, needed some new energy, experiences and stimuli.

As the organising committee, we asked ourselves this question. Has managing La Skieda turned into a continuous quest simply to improve what we offer, as if we were promoting some sort of commercial product? Does it make sense to keep on making small changes to a consolidated programme, which is indeed appreciated, but no longer mirrors the enthusiasm and wish to experiment of La Skieda’s first few years?

Isn’t this all just a little too far from the spirit that makes La Skieda such a high energy event, the spirit of the Telemarkers who take part, the spirit of the Dama Bianca?!

The answer came from a message written back in 2001 which started like this:

“Dear Friends, as you’ll have understood LA SKIEDA, as you’ve seen it over the past six years, no longer exists…”

A good fifteen years have passed since that day and those words as well as fifteen editions of La Skieda, at which over ten thousand friends have taken part, or better ten thousand brothers and sisters who have become the La Skieda family.

Just like fifteen years ago, this brilliant story needed a bit of a break in order to regain its enthusiasm, joy, wonder, a desire for something new, simplicity: features which have made La Skieda so special.

This time too, we want to stop and pause whilst we’re still at the top, whilst things are still going well, whilst the feedback is positive, as this is the ideal time to understand what new route La Skieda should take, before the onset of a slow, unrelenting decline.

However, we don’t want and indeed wouldn’t be able to find the right route on our own and, as always, we need your help, your ideas, and your spirit because – and we know we really don’t have to remind you of this – YOU ARE LA SKIEDA!

You yourselves will have to create the rest with your ideas, your wishes and your dreams. Here below there are a few of the suggestions we’ve already collected: we know that the Alpine guides want to organise excursions, for example, and that the Telemark Club will be running Telekids, the pubs in Livigno will be coming up with ideas about how to have you spend your evenings, the Sherpas have a surprise party in mind and our producers want to have you try their materials….and what about you? What do YOU want to do?

We’re going to put the skieda.com website and our social networking pages at your disposal, so you can pop your proposals up there. What’s different for 2017 is that YOU will be the creators and developers of your project. What will come from these ideas is a programme that will grow day after day so that everyone will know what’s going to happen, how and where.

This is our idea, our proposal.

In 2001, we left you on your own and 541 of you came for the sheer pleasure of being together, skiing together, having fun and having fun together.